Ghost Immersion: the conscious past
by qirien
Summary: COMPLETE! Now, with double the ninjas! At New Tokyo University, the Historical Immersion System is ready to be tested. When the system doesn't work as planned, Section 9 is asked to investigate. Set in the GitS:SAC world, near the beginning of 2nd GIG
1. History, Live

_"There is properly no history; only biography."   
--Ralph Waldo Emerson_

Shimura Yumeko meticulously scanned the code she just wrote for the newest section of the Historical Immersion System. As a research assistant to Professor Ogawa, Yumeko had been working long hours for over four months on the database integration and graphic simulation of the system. After finally getting approval from the Department of Internal Affairs to direct-link the system to their history database network, it was time to test it out live.

There had been some tests in the past, of course -- but they were all with dummy databases. The system generated the proper graphics, sound, tactile, and smell simulations for the three dummy test sets -- a beach, a house, and a lake -- but that was easy. There were already many virtual reality systems that made the user feel as if they were somewhere else. This system was different.

Yumeko tapped her pencil on the desk absently. _I suppose we should probably make the database access read-only, just to be safe. We shouldn't have permission to write to the government database, anyway, but in case of a bug we wouldn't want to have to explain the attempt._ She modified one line of code slightly to reflect the change. _Oh, now I'm just stalling,_ she thought to herself disgustedly. _What am I afraid of? That it won't work? Of course there will be bugs, but I'm not going to find all of them sitting here staring at the code._

What made the Historical Immersion System different was its ability to not just make the user feel as if they were somewhere in history, but to give them the memories of having experienced that history. Of course, all the participants had to sign waivers and such, since they did access people's memories, and they couldn't use it for any military purposes because of the New Geneva Extension, but those were just technicalities, really.

_Maybe I'm just jealous because, if it works, students won't need to study history and memorize dates and places the way I had to -- they could just plug in the system and then **know** it as if they had been there._ She smiled to herself. _Though, I guess that's the whole reason Professor Ogawa is having us build this thing._

She thought about waiting until tomorrow, when the other assistants would be here, and they could test it together, but she knew that she would get more done if she started the testing now, when she could concentrate and not be interrupted. She took a sip of her water and ate the last cookie from her snack drawer, and then sighed. _It's almost midnight; I could just go home . . ._ She slammed her hand down on the table with sudden determination. _No, I'm going to try it tonight._

She brought up the main system interface and told it to start one of the scenarios from the live database she had programmed, and then plugged in her cyberbrain interface plugs. Her vision blacked for a second, and then she appeared in the midst of some trees on the edge of a gigantic clearing.

Yumeko tried to take in all the details, searching for anything amiss. The smell of the trees was right, the crisp fall temperature was appropriate, and as she looked around, a large platform and castle began to form in front of her. It started as a blurry mass of pixels, and quickly coalesced into Osaka Castle, five stories high and raised up on two platforms. _Well, there's a problem -- if you log in too fast it doesn't have time to cache the more complicated graphics. Or maybe it's a problem with the random starting positioning?_. As she looked at the castle, she suddenly began . . . to remember . . .

_"Mommy, why do I have to leave you and Daddy?"_

_"Senhime, you must be brave and strong. You are going to marry the son of an important clan leader to try to cement the peace between the Toyotomi and the Tokugawa. From this point on, you must listen to your husband's mother, Lady Yodo, as if she were your own mother. I trust her to take good care of you, since she is my sister."_ Yumeko felt herself, a seven-year-old girl, fight back tears and nod dutifully. A swirl of other faces and phrases, castle rooms, learning to cook, formal kimono, and festivals faded in and out of her thoughts . . .

_It was a beautiful spring day, the cherry trees laden with blossoms, and she was eating outside with Lady Yodo and Hideyori. She had prepared the lunch herself, and wanted so badly for the to enjoy it. Lady Yodo wasn't mean, but she clearly had high expectations for the wife of her son. As they carefully sampled each course, she could tell from their faces that the meal was a success. She began to relax a little bit and enjoy the blanket of petals and the warm spring air . . ._

_She felt so frustrated. She had married Hideyori after her grandfather had defeated the Toyotomi armies at Sekigahara to try to ease the conflict between the two. But there was too much rivalry, too much tension and suspicion and ambition, even she didn't know who was "right" and who was "wrong" anymore. With the recent news that the nearby village of Imafuku had been attacked and defeated, it seemed there was nothing she could do anymore. And, with her grandfather Tokugawa as the shogun of the rest of Japan, with larger armies and more resources and support, she could not see how Hideyori could win this conflict._

Yumeko paused for a minute, a little overwhelmed at strange new memories surfacing all at once, from a completely different time and place. For a moment, all she could feel was Senhime's despair, and she almost sat down and cried right there. But then her own memories and desires, her hard work, her determination to finish the project, came to the foreground, and she shook her head with a smile. _That was quite different from how I learned about the Tokugawa Unification in school!_ Even the thought of Tokugawa brought to mind Senhime's memories of her parents and grandparents, and it took a little effort for Yumeko to push them away and concentrate on her own goals.

_Well, there's a few things I need to fix, but I don't see any major bugs . . . So far it works better than I had expected, but I'll have to do some more testing._ She decided to enter the castle itself, to take a closer look at the interior graphics and historical artifact generation algorithms.

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_I have the next chapter written already; just going to polish it up before I post it. If you're interested in learning more about the events in Japanese history mentioned, search for the following on Wikipedia I've tried to be as historically accurate as possible (though obviously I made up Senhime's "memories")._

Historical references:

Senhime

Osaka Castle

Toyotomi Hideyori

Tokugawa Ieyasu


	2. Old Friends, New Favors

_"No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." --David McCullough_

"Ah, Aramaki-kun, it's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"A long time indeed, Yamashita-kun. When I received the message and saw your name, it was like a ghost from the past." The two sat down at an outdoor table at the cafe, warm even in the shade of a large peach tree, and a plainly-dressed android waitress brought a pot of tea and two cups.

"A ghost, indeed!" Yamashita smiled slightly, creases lining his face, and then carefully poured tea. The two sat quietly for a few minutes, both comfortable in their thoughts, gently sipping the tea. A cicada chirped noisily in the tree above.

"Well," Aramaki began gently, "you don't seem quite the cheerful man I remember from our days together at the university. Is everything well with you?"

"You read me too well, old friend. I can't complain about myself, but I'm a little worried about my fellow professor. I don't suppose you remember Ogawa-san, do you? He was in a few of our classes, but not too many. He studied mainly Japanese history and architecture -- which is what he teaches now. Well, I should say, what he taught." Yamashita looked down for a minute.

"Ogawa-san? Yes, I remember him, though I can't say I knew him well."

"He is rather quiet, and tends to get deeply involved in his own studies. I fear that may be what has happened this time."

"I see. Has something happened to him?"

"I'm afraid so. He is now in the hospital in a coma -- there is brain activity, but he has been unable to regain consciousness. Several of his research assistants have met the same fate."

"Really..." Aramaki looked thoughtful, "Do they have any idea what has caused this lack of consciousness?"

"The doctors at the hospital suspected some sort of chemical in the air -- perhaps a ventilation problem, but I have a different idea. I think it may be related to his latest project."

"What project is that," Aramaki asked.

"Well, I don't know all that much about it, but I do know that they were building an immersive AI system."

"An AI system? What for?"

"A historical simulation system. A week ago, he mentioned to me how excited he was that it was almost ready for initial testing. He said he always wanted to be able, not just to tell his students about history, but to have them experience it. He called it the 'Historical Immersion System'."

"I can understand the appeal of that. Such a system might have many uses . . . "

"Yes, apparently the government thought so too. I was able to retrieve some papers that indicate government funding from several departments. I thought that, since they were funding the project, they would want to help Ogawa-san . . . but they seem loathe to investigate this, for some reason. It's too bad there's no one else that is taking an interest in this, for Ogawa-san's sake . . ."

"Yes, indeed . . . that is a pity." Aramaki paused, while taking another sip of tea. The still summer air surrounded the two older men, and, for a moment, even the cicadas were silent. Yamashita set his cup down gently and glanced at Aramaki. A slightly mischievous smile crept into the Chief's eyes, and Yamashita nodded slowly.

"Ah, well, perhaps you can indulge me by telling me a bit about some of our other old classmates. I haven't heard from any of them, except those I see at the university . . ."

"Of course," Aramaki agreed, and as he began to tell of a few mutual old friends, silently opened up a secure comlink.

_"Major?"_

_"I'm here, Chief."_

_"I want you and Ishikawa to see what you can find out about a project run by a Professor Ogawa called the 'Historical Immersion System' at New Tokyo University."_

_"All right. Are we looking for anything specific?"_

_"You can start your search by tracing the funding sources. Report anything suspicious that you find."_

_"Roger that. Sounds like you're up to no good, as usual."_

_"I wouldn't want you to get bored and take up another line of work."_

_"Heh. No danger of that, Chief. Major out."_

* * *

"Have you found anything yet, Ishikawa?" He pulled back from his terminal when he heard her approach, and pressed a button to change the display to the main screen,

"Well, it's a little bit difficult . . . the project has joint funding from several different government departments, as well as the university itself. The Board of Education and the Department of Internal Affairs seem to be providing the bulk of it."

"Department of Internal Affairs? Pull up their financial records related to this project." A new window popped up on the screen, listing amounts and transfer locations, with a transfer of the same amount the first of every month.

"Nothing out of the ordinary here . . . " Ishikawa scrolled through the list of entries, going back for six months. As he scrolled up, a new entry appeared with the current date.

"Something new, hmmm? For 6,000,000! Take a look at this, Major."

"I see. Who's the recipient of this latest transaction?"

"Let me trace the routing number . . . looks like a private bank account in Chiba, belonging to an Oda Ichigo." He started a search on Oda's ID number, which came back almost instantly. "Let's see . . . 45 years old, occupation: investor . . . looks like he's also got some suspected yakuza ties."

"Looks pretty suspicious . . . and sloppy, too," the Major commented. Ishikawa nodded, and reached to save the data for later retrieval, but at that moment, the entry disappeared, leaving only the innocuous monthly transfers.

"Not quite so sloppy after all," she said with amusement. "Well, we still don't have any evidence, but I think this will be enough for us to start on."

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_I tried to make the whole Aramki-Yamashita conversation very Japanese . . . which is hard to do in English. So if it sounds really formal and vague, that's why. :-)_


	3. Late

_"History, a distillation of rumour." --Thomas Carlyle_

Togusa felt terrible about leaving his family in such a bad state, but he made it a rule to always be on time for work. Unlike some of the other members of Section 9, who sometimes seem to live at headquarters, he tried to arrive and leave punctually, when work permitted. His wife was very understanding about his sometimes unpredictable hours -- more than once he'd had to buy a can of sake from a vending machine on the way home and chug it down so he could say he'd been drinking with coworkers instead of working on a special assignment -- but he still felt precariously balanced between the two lives, sometimes.

And it **did** feel like two separate lives -- one so involved with crime and deception and technology, and the other so innocent and calm and beautiful. Though the house was anything but calm, today.

"Daddy! I'm hungry, and I'm going to be late! An-chan will be here any minute to walk me to school, and I can't make her wait," his daughter complained. _Now, where did she get **that** sense of punctuality,_ he thought to himself wryly. She had only been in school for a few months, but she took it very seriously. He bent down to her level and tried to sound positive.

"I know; I think I'm going to be late myself. Here, your rice is still good, why don't you just eat that and leave the rest and go to school?" The table was a mess; his little boy had thrown up in the middle of breakfast all over half the food. His wife was trying to keep him from playing in the vomit and eating soiled food, while at the same time cleaning up the mess, and his daughter was close to tears. _I could use a top-notch team of secret police agents myself right about now . . . _

Surprisingly, his daughter took his advice and, wrinkling her nose, took her bowl as far from the mess as possible and began to eat. His wife gave him an amused smile and nodded towards the door for him to go. _Ah, what a beautiful woman,_ he thought, not for the first time. Gratefully, he nodded and headed out, pausing only to say goodbye and slip on his shoes at the door. Just as he closed the front door, he heard a loud crashing sound coming from the kitchen, and he cringed. He paused for a moment, but when no screams or crying followed, Togusa decided it would be okay for him to continue on to work.

_I'm not too late,_ he thought to himself as he merged onto the freeway. _If there's nothing going on, it's possible no one's noticed . . ._. He was interrupted by a private com from the Major.

"Togusa, where are you? A briefing is about to begin." He winced. Apologies never seemed to have any effect on the Major, but he had to offer one anyway.

"Sorry Major, I ran into some . . . problems and I'm running a little late, but I'm on my way."

"Good. Come to the briefing room as soon as you arrive. Major out."

* * *

Section 9, gathered in the briefing room, listened to the Chief explain the suspicious circumstances around Professor Ogawa's Historical Immersion System. Togusa still felt a little uncomfortable because of his late entrance, but his embarrassment was soon replaced by interest in this new case. He wondered what kind of research project could land a professor and his assistants in a coma in the hospital -- especially a research project by a **history** professor.

As the Chief finished, he nodded to the Major and she began to give out assignments.

"Paz, Saito, I want you to check out Oda Ichigo and see what he's being paid for." The two nodded expressionlessly. "Ishikawa, Borma, see if you can find any information on why the Department of Internal Affairs is interested in this project. Batou, find out which hospital Professor Ogawa is at right now and see what you can discover there. Togusa, go to the university and learn what you can."

"What about you, Major," Batou asked.

"I'll just go wherever seems like the most fun," she answered flippantly, and began to leave.

"The most dangerous, you mean," he muttered quietly, and Togusa fought a grin as he stood up on his way out.

As he drove on the freeway once again, this time towards New Tokyo University, he used the quiet time to plan his investigation. By the time he pulled his car into the parking lot, he had several ideas of how to obtain the information he needed. He grabbed one of his spare IDs from the glove compartment and pulled up a map of campus through his cyberbrain. Cross-referencing with a faculty list gave him the building that Professor Ogawa's office was in, and he kept the map up as he traversed the campus so that he wouldn't get lost. Obviously, he didn't expect to find Professor Ogawa there, but hopefully there would be someone who knew something about the situation.

An older, smartly dressed woman greeted him as he entered the floor of the building that housed most of the faculty offices. "Can I help you, sir," she asked politely, not appearing at all unhappy to be interrupted.

"Yes, I'm looking for Professor Ogawa." _A simple approach usually works best, and is the least suspicious,_ he thought.

"Professor Ogawa? I'm afraid he is not in his office, and won't be back for quite some time. Perhaps I could help you?"

"Maybe so. I was supposed to talk with him about a paper he is writing for our publication about his newest project. When he didn't return my messages, I thought I would just drop by." The secretary nodded in understanding.

"I see. Well, you might want to postpone publication of that article for a while. You see, Professor Ogawa is in the hospital."

"Oh dear! I had no idea! I hope he's not seriously ill?" He leaned forward a little over the desk, to give their conversation a bit more privacy. She looked around worriedly before replying in a low voice,

"Well . . . the truth is that he is in a coma. The doctor at the hospital told me that it was from air poisoning due to an air conditioner malfunction. But that was several days ago . . ."

"I see . . . the poor Professor! Do you think I could perhaps talk with one of his assistants -- they may actually be able to give me the information I need." Once again she lowered her voice and leaned forward slightly before answering.

"I'm afraid not. They are all in the hospital, as well, with the same condition."

"All of them! Why, that seems very strange, don't you think?" Togusa already knew that the lab assistants and the professor were in the hospital, but he tried to sound very surprised and concerned.

"Yes, it is strange." She shook her head. "I have called the hospital several times, but they don't seem to know when they will wake up or how to treat them. And when we told maintenance to check the air conditioning in the Sanada building -- that's where the lab is, you know -- they said they couldn't find anything wrong with it."

"Well, that's very unusual. I really hope the Professor is all right. It seems like you are keeping a good watch on him." The secretary smiled a little at this, and he continued, "Perhaps I could leave my number with you, and when he comes back, I hope he will give me a call." He handed her a fake business card for his cover as a magazine editor.

"Oh, of course, sir. I'm so sorry I couldn't help you." She smiled genuinely, and he was surprised for a moment to find such a friendly, genuine person -- in their business, they dealt mostly with military types, crooks, and slimy politicians. Sometimes all three in one.

"Not at all -- I just feel bad for the Professor and his assistants. Thank you so much for your invaluable assistance." He bowed politely, and then walked out the large double doors and down the steps. Togusa then searched on the campus map for the Sanada Building, the one the secretary had mentioned. _With any luck,_ he thought, _the Historical Immersion System will be there in the lab. And maybe some clues as well._

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_I should mention that my husband is my co-writer on this whole fic. He comes up with a lot of the intrigue and subtle connections, and is a great editor, too. :-) Oh, and the cleaning up vomit was from my own personal experience with my one-year-old son last week. Ugh. If you're reading this, please review! Even if you just say "hi", I want to know that people are reading (and special thanks to Zurizip for always reading and giving helpful reviews!)_


	4. Doctors Over Flowers

_HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools. --Ambrose Bierce_

Batou had a lot of time to think on the long drive up to New Tokyo. Too much time. _Maybe I should have driven up with Togusa, so it wouldn't be so damn quiet in this car._ Obviously he could have sent a com to someone, but even though it didn't use any resources, you still just didn't send people coms to chat. At least, nobody in Section 9 did.

_I wonder what Motoko's doing right now?_ He frowned. Of course, there was no point in worrying about her -- there wasn't anything particularly dangerous about this case, and she seemed practically indestructible, most of the time. But the endless miles of freeway stretched on. There wasn't even much traffic, since not as many people went to New Tokyo since the bombing. _At least it's better than taking a train._

He pulled up some files for the case, and turned on some music, and ran a few diagnostic programs, and cleaned out some old files. He did a little digging online to find out where Professor Ogawa had been hospitalized. He thought about maybe reading a book or something (with a military-grade cyberbrain, there were enough CPU cycles to drive and read at the same time, with plenty to spare), but then the sprawling vista of New Tokyo came into view. Skyscrapers poked out of the ocean like dolphin skeletons begging for fish, and the city from this distance looked like a zombie's flesh -- some parts had rotted away to nothing, revealing the maggoty skeleton underneath, while others were disturbingly untouched.

He had to drive around for a while before he found a flower shop near New Tokyo University Hospital, where Professor Ogawa had been taken. _I definitely should have come with Togusa; he's probably 2 blocks away at the University right now. In fact, I think I just passed his car._ He trusted that the salesperson at the shop knew what flowers were appropriate -- the bright colors looked all right, and they didn't smell bad according to his smell synthesizer, so he supposed they would work.

He tried not to think about flowers too much. The only times he had ever bought flowers was for people who were dying or already dead. At least Togusa hadn't died from that gunshot wound, though it had been pretty close. Must be because Batou had brought him some magazines instead of flowers.

When he entered the hospital, a petite, flawless-looking android sat at the receptionist's desk and welcomed him politely.

"I'm here to see Ogawa," he explained, gesturing with the flowers. She frowned a little, eyes distant, and shook her head.

"I'm sorry, but I can't give out his room number without authorization from him or his family."

"Is that so," he asked, stalling for time as he pulled up the hospital database once more on a virtual terminal, searching it for the room number. "Well, you won't mind if I just head up to room 315, then, right?" She paused for a moment, processing, and then answered.

"Of course not, sir. The elevator is to your left." The receptionist gestured mechanically to the left and then returned to her computer console, fingers flying as she transferred some data from a sheet of paper.

When he arrived at the room, he verified Ogawa's name in the file next to the door, and then he knocked quietly. When there was no response, he entered. Professor Ogawa lay motionless, with an IV and several machines monitoring his vital signs. He didn't seem to have any injuries, and a peek at the clipboard on the foot of his bed told Batou that he hadn't woken up since he arrived at the hospital. There was a record of vital signs readings and patient information, but no diagnosis.

Batou looked around for a place to put the flowers. _Shouldn't there be a vase or something to put these in?_. Just then, a stout middle-aged nurse entered the room, and started upon seeing an unfamiliar person in the room.

"Oh," she exclaimed, looking him over suspiciously, "Are you . . . a family member of Mr. Ogawa?"

"Nah, just a friend. He was my professor a long time ago, and I wanted to thank him. Had a pretty hard time tracking him here, though." Batou tried to seem friendly, though it was difficult with the nurse's piercing glare.

"Oh, a friend . . . " She sniffed a little disapprovingly, and sidestepped over to the machines where she examined the readouts and wrote down a few notes on the clipboard.

"So . . . is he taking a nap or something? Should I come back later?" he asked carefully, looking at Ogawa's peaceful face.

"You didn't know? The patient is in a coma . . . when we got here, his paperwork was missing, so Doctor Fujii is running some tests to try and find out what's wrong with him."

"A coma! That's serious, isn't it . . . "

"Yes, it is. And not only is he in a coma, but his four research assistants are, too." She looked down at the patient with mild disdain. "I suppose professors don't take as good of care of their students as they used to."

"Huh," he muttered noncommittally, and paused. The nurse went back to her clipboard. "Did you say you just recently started working here?" She sighed at being interrupted again, but answered anyway.

"Well, we all just got transferred in a few days ago, right after this patient arrived, actually. I think the previous staff must have been terribly incompetent, if they didn't even have paperwork for half the patients in this hall! But at least Doctor Fujii came with us," she added, brightening. "Now there is a doctor whom you can trust completely. Why, I've worked with a lot of doctors in my day, and none of them could dream of approaching the incredible skill and expertise of Doctor Fujii! You wouldn't believe some of the people calling themselves 'doctors' today! But, at least you can be reassured that your friend is now receiving the absolute best care possible from Doctor Fujii."

"Yes, he seems wonderful," he said dryly. Tossing the flowers on the table, he stood up and began to leave. "Thanks for your help."

"Sir," she called after him, "Would you like a vase for the flowers?"

"Do what you want with them," he spoke over his shoulder, and then muttered, "Maybe you should give them to Doctor Fujii."

_I'm not going to find anything else here. But maybe I can track down who the previous doctor was, see if they had a diagnosis or some paperwork or something._ As he headed back to his car, he pulled up his virtual terminal again and ran a search on the hospital's personnel list. _If they recently got transferred, they might still be in the system somewhere . . ._ The personnel roster combined with the shift schedule told him that a Doctor Kobayashi was on duty the day Ogawa was brought in. Closer examination of Kobayashi's record revealed that she had been transferred to an SDF hospital in Takamatsu. Upon checking some of the nurses and other personnel on duty at the time, it appeared they were just transferred to the same hospital, too.

_It's pretty suspicious, an entire department transferred, especially to an SDF hospital . . . it's not like it's wartime or anything. And why someplace as out of the way as Takamatsu? That base is so small it's surprising it even has a hospital._ Pulling up the personnel records of the Takamatsu base, he searched for a Doctor Kobayashi . . . but there was none listed. Undaunted, he instead attempted to access the security system's user listing. _I hope these passwords are still good . . . if not, I guess I'll have to do a dive._ The suspense was short-lived as usernames quickly scrolled across the screen. One caught his eye -- kobayashiki. _Must be last name, first syllable of first name,_ he thought, asking the system for more info on kobayashiki. The last login was at a terminal in Building 257, room 508. Pulling up the floor plans for Building 257, he found two com port addresses in room 508. He tried the first; there was no response, but on the second someone answered.

"I'm sorry, but Doctor Kobayashi cannot currently accept incoming coms. Please try again at a later time." _An android answering her com, huh? If Doctor Kobayashi is this hard to get a hold of, she must know something good._ He slid into the driver's seat of his car and paused, thinking, generating options and discarding them, until there was really only one feasible course of action. _I guess I'll have to do this the hard way and find Doctor Kobayashi in person._ He exhaled with minor irritation. _First I have to drive all the way up to New Tokyo, and now it's down to Takamatsu . . . what a waste of time. I don't think it's worth commandeering the tilt-rotor for this, though, so I guess I have no choice._ He opened up a comlink to Section 9 as he started the car.

"Major, seems like somebody didn't like the work the previous doctor was doing here -- the whole section got trasferred to the SDF hospital in Takamatsu. The doctor's not available by com, and Ogawa's files are missing -- so I'm guessing she knows something good. I'm heading down there to see what I can find out."

"Going for another joyride, huh? You'll be just in time for the bullfights in Uwajima." He gritted his teeth.

"Yeah . . I'll send you a postcard . . . Batou out." He thought he might have heard her laugh, but it could have been his imagination. He shook his head.

"Tachikoma! Meet me at these coordinates; we're going for a ride."


	5. Standalone Network

_"Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books." --Walt Whitman_

Shortly after the Chief's briefing, Motoko Kusanagi strode into the computer room and leaned casually on a chair near the console where Ishikawa and Borma were working.

"Report," she said simply. Ishikawa was in the middle of a dive, so Borma answered.

"We've found some leads that point to a high-ranking SDF official as the driving force behind the Department of Internal Affair's funding of this project. We found his name in the bill that passed the funding. Ishikawa's trying to take a look at his files and memos and see what he can find, but most of the references point to a sneaker net inside the SDF base." She nodded.

"A standalone network, huh. What's this guy's name?"

"Akimoto Hiroshi -- looks like his office is on the base near here." Borma pulled up the official's profile for her to look at. An older man, balding on top, with set-back eyes and no smile, his appearance was fairly unremarkable.

"I see . . . let me know if you find anything new." With that, she left the room with as much fanfare as she had entered it.

* * *

An hour and a half later, she turned on her thermoptic camouflage just outside the SDF base and hopped on the rear bumper of a supply truck heading in. The driver and passenger both showed their badges to the guard at the gate, and the ID scanner approved the holographic sticker on the windshield. With her weight the truck was a little heavier than normal, but nobody noticed, so the truck rumbled on through. She guessed that the supply truck was on its way to the base cafeteria, and from the map she had downloaded, it should pass right by the bureaucratic office building.

It was a little risky doing an operation like this during the day, when the thermoptic camo had to do so many more calculations based on lights and shadows and reflections, but she had patched it in to her own cyberbrain so it could use her excess CPU power, and it seemed to be working fine. The main concern for this operation was to leave no trace of the investigation -- anything suspicious, and it could be Section 9 that got in trouble instead of Akimoto Hiroshi. Once they had some hard evidence, then Section 9 wouldn't need to be quite as circumspect.

The truck approached the office building and she hopped off onto some grass shaded by a tree. It was a quiet landing, but she made small depressions in the grass that someone might notice sooner or later, so she quickly slid onto the sidewalk. Noiselessly creeping, she hid behind a shed and then turned off her camo. It was too tricky trying to open doors and windows while invisible, and with her military dress uniform, she could pass as one of the workers on base.

Scoping out the building, she noticed the badge slot next to the front door. _I don't really want to leave a record of my visit, even if it is with my fake military ID . . . _She scanned the exterior for other entrances, but all were too risky to try in the daylight. Trying the shed handle, she found it open. A few boxes full of spare sprinkler parts littered the floor, along with a shelf of tools and gardening implements. She closed the boxes, stacked them up, and lifted them up effortlessly.

Closing the shed door behind her, she walked slowly on the sidewalk around towards the front of the building. When a young soldier crossed the street and also headed towards the front, she made her way towards the front door. He hurried up the steps to swipe his badge and open the door for her. She smiled gratefully, trying to make the boxes seem heavy, and entered the building. Fortunately, the young soldier hurried off down the hallway and didn't try to help her further. With the entryway of the building empty, she set the boxes down in a corner and headed to the elevator.

"Major," interrupted Batou on the com, as he told her about the missing doctor. She pushed the "up" button and listened as she waited for the elevator to arrive.

"Going for another joyride, huh? You'll be just in time for the bullfights in Uwajima," she said innocently as she scanned the area for cameras and other security measures.

"Yeah . . I'll send you a postcard . . . Batou out." She let out an amused sigh just as the elevator chimed its arrival, and she entered.

The profile Borma brought up had Akimoto's office on the eighth floor. But the elevator buttons only went up to five. _There must be a separate elevator for the higher floors,_ she thought, as she punched the button for the fifth floor. Motoko noted the tiny camera in the corner of the elevator and casually stood under it, where it could see as little of her as possible.

The door opened at the third floor to let on a dark-complexioned woman carrying a data card, with a badge reading "Ohara Sumeko". She went to press the button for floor five, but stopped when she saw it was already lit. From the office listing Motoko remembered seeing in the lobby, she determined that Sumeko worked in the same office number as Akimoto. _Perhaps she's his personal assistant._

"This summer heat is really draining, isn't it," the woman asked pleasantly. Motoko smiled and answered,

"Yes, though I heard it's supposed to rain later this week." Motoko located the woman's cyberbrain on the net and examined her firewalls. They hadn't been updated recently, so she was able to use a known bug to easily bypass them without detection. _A good thing personal assistants don't get firewalls as good as those they assist,_ she thought wryly.

"Oh, really? I thought the rainy season was over already." Sumeko sighed, and the conversation ended.

The elevator doors opened to the fifth floor. Hiding quietly in the back of the other woman's mind, Motoko walked slowly down the hallway in the opposite direction of the assistant. She watched through the other woman's eyes as she approached a blank keypad next to a second elevator. A security guard passed Motoko in the hallway, but didn't do more than glance at her.

Sumeko pushed a green button near the keypad, and the blank spaces lit up in yellow to display all ten digits in random positions. Motoko noted the numbers she pressed for the access code and walked into the women's restroom. Sitting inside one of the stalls and closing the door, she continued watching Sumeko to see what other security measures were in place to reach Akimoto's office.

"Major? This is Togusa." Sumeko was exiting the elevator at the eighth floor.

"Go ahead, Togusa." Motoko watched as Sumeko walked halfway down the hall and entered an open door.

"No one seems to know much about why the Professor is missing, but I did find the Historical Immersion System that the Chief was talking about in a lab here on campus -- it looks active, but that whole wing of the building is pretty deserted." Sumeko sat down at her desk just outside an office with a plaque reading "Akimoto Hiroshi."

"I see. Stay there and keep an eye on things. See if you can find out anything else." Motoko flushed the toilet and washed her hands quickly at the sink for the benefit of the intruder detection algorithms inside yet another camera her infrared sensors detected on the other side of the mirror.

"Roger that. Togusa out." When Sumeko glanced around, Motoko noticed a triple-combination security device outside Akimoto's door -- a retinal scanner, thumbprint verifier, and voice-print analyzer. Nonplussed, Motoko headed down the hallway to the second elevator. She listened as Sumeko answered the phone.

"No, I'm sorry, Akimoto is in a meeting right now. May I take a message?" As she spoke, the assistant glanced towards the door again, and Motoko could see that it was slightly ajar. She almost laughed. _The most stringent security system in the world won't do them any good if they leave the door wide open. I guess I can't complain, though, since it makes my job easier._ She entered the stolen code in at the second elevator, and it took her up to the eighth floor.

Disconnecting from Akimoto's assistant as the elevator doors opened, she analyzed the camera layout until she found a blind spot where none of the cameras covered. When she walked over to it, she bent down as if to check her shoe, waiting until another assistant had passed, and then she turned on her thermoptic camouflage once again and crept towards Akimoto's office.

With both doors open, and Sumeko busy on her terminal, she was in his office and hooked in to his computer via a dummy barrier in less than fifteen seconds. Diving in, she found several layers of firewalls and encryption, much stronger than the simple ones she had overcome on the secretary. Glancing out the window at the bright summer sun, in her head she began generating hundreds of millions of decryption keys each second, and the layers of protection fell away like a cicada's old skin.

Motoko then ran several hundred searches with different combinations of phrases related to the Historical Immersion System and its funding. She quickly scanned through the results, sorting by relevancy, and downloaded them to Section 9's main computer. About halfway through the transfer, she detected a delayed-action virus coming through. She went to disconnect, but was several milliseconds too late, and with a small spark and the acrid smell of fried electronics, her dummy barrier was shot. She blinked once, a hint of a worry creeping closer. _So much for going undetected. But with an offensive firewall like that, there's bound to be something good in here._ She started reading the content of the files that did transfer, and the worry fled. Opening an encrypted comlink, she opened the window and jumped out eight stories to land with a muffled thud on the grass below.

"Chief, I've got something here you'll want to see."


	6. Bomb Shell

_"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge -- myth is more potent than history -- dreams are more powerful than facts -- hope always triumphs over experience -- laughter is the cure for grief -- love is stronger than death." -Robert Fulghum_

Togusa stopped on his way to the Sanada building to grab a quick lunch from a bento vendor, sitting on a bench and taking in the courtyard and the students that studied, rested, ate, or gathered to chat. As he ate, he noticed small groups of students arriving with signs and coming together in a gathering nearby. A cameraman from a local television station was filming an impeccably-dressed reporter interviewing a few of those gathered. Then, after a short talk from one student who appeared to be their leader, they gave a cheer and, raising up their signs, began milling about purposefully. He smiled nostalgically. _So idealistic . . . I remember when I thought you could change the world by waving around signs . . . _

Togusa finished off a small apple and tossed the empty food box in the trash. He sidestepped a protester bearing a sign reading, "Cyberbrains For All", and he noticed other signs reading, "Subsidies For Cyberbrains" and "No Cyberbrain, No Opportunity". _Are there really still people that don't have cyberbrains,_ thought Togusa. _Even my kids have them, these days -- they're required for public school entrance, and most jobs._

Entering the Sanada building, he checked the directory at the front and found the "Historical Systems Lab" on the third floor. When he arrived, the whole area was quiet and the lab, though locked, was empty. _I better report to the Major before I go in._ He opened up a secure comlink and told her what he had found so far.

"I see. Stay there and keep an eye on things. See if you can find out anything else." He nodded, though she couldn't see it.

Checking once again to be sure the hallway was empty, Togusa examined the lock. It looked like a standard four-digit type. _So all the students and research assistants have easy access,_ he thought, _though it makes it a bit harder for intruders like me._ He pulled out his electronic lockpick, connected it to the lock's terminals, and waited while it ran through various combinations. It wouldn't work on newer locks, and if the lock was hooked up to a security net it might trigger some warnings, but on an old lock like this one it was perfect.

The door clicked open and he entered quietly, closing the door behind him. The room was filled with terminals, most of which were connected to a medium-sized box on the central table of the room. There was no sign of any foul play -- no blood, no overturned chairs, and no dents in the wall or furniture. The lab was a little disorganized, with papers and books and cables strewn about the tables and floor. He carefully looked through a few of the lab notebooks and examined the most recently accessed files on the terminals. _Looks like they were working on the system fairly recently._

He turned on the digital whiteboard, and it displayed a "To-Do" list for the lab. The first three items read:

"Direct-link to Internal Affairs Database Network - Shimura"

"Formulate World War II Scenario - Tanaka"

"Debug Resource Leak In Snow Taste Formulation (low priority) - Fujiwara"

When he turned on one of the terminals connected to the box, he could pull up the system log. The last login data was from several days ago, where there were logins for Shimura, Ogawa, Fujiwara, and Tanaka, but no logouts. Other data in the logs showed that the system was currently up and running a simulation called "Osakajo 1614." _Wait -- are they still logged in?_ His thoughts were interrupted by a secure com from the Major.

"Togusa, are you there?"

"Yes, Major?"

"Paz and Saito just got word of a bomb planted in the lab there at the University -- it's scheduled to go off during a protest. Apparently that's what the deleted transfer from the Department of Internal Affairs to the yakuza was for." Togusa glanced around, the urgency not fully registering. Under the table he noticed a nondescript metal box with several flashing LEDs.

"Major, I think I found it. They must be using the protest outside as a cover." He bent down to look closer at the bomb. "This looks pretty big . . . can't we disarm it or something?" He looked around at all the terminals and wires and electronics. "Or at least recover some of this hardware?"

"There's no time! We don't know exactly when it will go off, but if the protest has already started, then you need to get out of there right now!" With the urgency in her voice, the situation finally clicked, and adrenaline suddenly began to flow as if through an IV. He stood up quickly, no longer hesitant. Yanking the wires out of the main system on the table, he scooped it up in one hand and opened the door with the other. It was surprisingly light, he noted, as he raced down the hallway, pulling the first fire alarm he saw.

"C'mon people, get out of here, this isn't a drill," he yelled over the noise of the fire alarm as he ran. Those who heard began to walk faster, then run to follow him out.

When he ran out the front doors, he noticed that the protesters were mainly gathered around the wing where the bomb was. _With a bomb that powerful, they'll be blasted, too. No doubt to help cover the yakuza's tracks._ He looked around for some sort of broadcast device. _If I were the Major I could just increase voice output, but I guess my own lungs will have to do_. He stood up on a bench and waved his arms to try to get the crowd's attention.

"Everybody, move away from the building immediately! This is not a drill!" With all the noise of the protesters shouting and the fire alarm going off, only a few people near Togusa seemed to notice his pleas. One older-looking student scowled and yelled back,

"Hey man, you can't interrupt a peaceful protest. You're just part of the system that's keeping everybody down!" A long-haired girl near him added calmly,

"Yeah, we registered our protest at the office, so we're totally legit. You can't just tell us to leave." Despairing, Togusa glanced back at the Sanada building. People were still leaving the building, unhurriedly but steadily, but as they entered the plaza, they joined the already-large group to form a mass around the bomb blast area. _So many people . . . I've got to find some way to get them out of here!_

At last, reaching a decision, he glanced upward, and then pulled out his Mateba revolver and fired a single shot into the air.

The courtyard went quiet, all faces turned to the solitary figure silhouetted against the afternoon sun, gun in hand. The only movement was that of the cameraman swinging his camera around to face the source of the gunshot. In this moment of relative silence, Togusa spoke, loudly and clearly.

"Move away from the building, NOW! There's a bomb ready to explode at any minute!"

Like snow driven before the wind in a blizzard, the crowd surged away, randomly and yet purposefully. But the sound was more like an explosion, sudden and piercing, as everyone began talking at once as they fled.

"Is this a terrorist attack? Have they made any demands?"

"Where's the police!"

"Did he just say that he has a bomb!"

"I think my friend's still in there!"

"Ahhh, there's a crazy guy with a gun who's gonna blow us all up with a bomb!"

"Wait, what's going on!"

"I guess we'll have to reschedule the protest for another day."

_Finally, they're beginning to move,_ Togusa thought as he herded them away like a sheep dog. There were still a few people leaving the building, but when they saw the chaos outside they rushed to join it. _Hopefully I don't get into trouble for this . . . _The Major's voice interrupted his thoughts,

"That was a nice stunt back there. I hope your wife doesn't watch the news." _Oh no, if this gets on the news . . . _He barely had time to imagine several possibilities, all unpleasant, before Ishikawa spoke on the same channel.

"Don't worry, we put on a media blackout just in time. The Major was keeping an eye on you, you know." Togusa didn't know whether to feel relieved or offended that they didn't trust him to handle the situation by himself. He never got a chance to decide, though, because at that moment he was knocked off his feet by the explosion.

* * *

About an hour later, the Major and Ishikawa had arrived in the tilt-rotor and were going through the wreckage of the lab with Togusa, searching for useful information or equipment. Section 1 was keeping the curious crowd at bay and working with medical personnel to recover the dead and injured. Many of the protesters had minor wounds from shrapnel, and one was badly bruised from being trampled, but most of these had already been treated. Togusa couldn't help remembering the grotesque melted skin and twisted limbs of those who had been closest to the blast. The flaming sunset seemed to bathe their empty shells in fire all over again as the emergency workers carefully lifted them out of the ruined building. He wasn't sure which bodies were more disturbing -- the ones who had died, or those who had survived. _It seems like I could have done something more, to get everyone away faster . . . _

Subconsciously, he touched the bandage on his ear where a piece of the building had grazed him. It had bled a lot for such a tiny scrape, and now it itched a little. Finished searching the last section of the wreckage, he looked over to see the Major talking to the Section 1 officer in charge, whom Togusa vaguely recognized. The officer spoke,

"Well, it could have been a lot worse, I'll tell you that much. Thanks to Togusa's quick warning, there were only five casualties instead of a hundred." The Major nodded quietly and glanced at Togusa. He supposed he should feel successful -- he had thought that the body count would be much higher -- but that was still five people who would never see their loved ones again. Motoko replied quietly,

"We will send you some data we've recovered on those who planted the bomb. Make good use of it." With that, she turned and began heading toward the building with the helipad where they had left the tilt-rotor. "Ishikawa, Togusa -- time to go."

* * *

Back at headquarters, Section 9 reconvened in the conference room for a quick update before ending the day. Aramaki addressed the group,

"Thanks to your investigations, we should have enough evidence to incriminate several leaders of the yakuza for the bomb blast. Motoko also obtained some files implicating Akimoto Hiroshi of the SDF and several of his subordinates of planning to use the Historical Immersion System for military training despite the New Geneva Extension, as well as leaving a backdoor for 'assuring future historical accuracy.' While we know that they hired the yakuza to remove evidence of this, we haven't been able to find hard evidence of that. I'm not sure how much of a case we have at the moment, but Section 1 is now handling this portion of the investigation."

"Our main concern now is with Professor Ogawa and his assistants. Togusa's suspicion that they are still logged in to the Historical Immersion System was corroborated by Batou's interview of the doctor, so that should be our next step. With the parts recovered from the lab, Ishikawa tells me that should be able to have the system ready for investigation sometime tomorrow. Then we need to find out what happened and help them regain consciousness, if possible. Major, I'd like you to be in charge of this endeavor." She nodded.

As they filed out after the meeting, Togusa headed to the equipment lockers to drop off his electronic lockpick and some other equipment. Nearby, Batou, who was also putting a few things away, glanced over and asked,

"So, do you think Section 1 can handle the rest of this investigation?" Togusa shrugged, still a bit subdued from the events of the day.

"They deal with that kind of thing a lot -- they're pretty experienced at making a good case out of a small amount of evidence."

"I see . . . hey, what's with the bandage? You get in a fight or something? Here I am, driving up and down the countryside, while you're dodging bullets and disarming bombs . . . " Batou stopped, upon seeing the distant look on Togusa's face.

"Yeah . . . you should have been there." _Maybe then, those five people . . ._ Once again, the images of seared skin and faces twisted in death flashed through his mind. Closing his eyes for a moment to clear his head, Togusa shut his locker gently and headed to the garage to go home. Batou looked at him, face unreadable, but there was nothing to say.

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_Here we have the longest chapter yet; approximately half-way through. If you haven't already (or even if you have), please review:-)_


	7. Intermission

_"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."_ -George Bernard Shaw

Late at night, in the hangar, the Tachikoma gathered. All the employees had gone home, except for Ishikawa, who was upstairs trying to salvage parts from the half-burnt terminals to connect to the Historical Immersion System.

"Hey, hey, did you hear about the new system Togusa brought in!" One Tachikoma waved its arms excitedly, and the rest gathered around.

"Yeah! I heard it was a project to experience history, and a bunch of people are stuck inside it!"

"How could they be stuck? The box isn't very big . . . "

"No, it's like they can't log out!"

"Maybe they just don't want to log out...like that cyberbrain the Major found that had the movie in it." The Tachikoma paused for a moment to think about that, collectively remembering their adventure where they found the movie director's cyberbrain. Then, one spoke up.

"Is history really that interesting?"

"Well, humans can't just sync memories like we can, so I guess it's kind of necessary."

"Hey, what kind of history simulation is it running, anyway?"

"Let's see . . . from Togusa's report, looks like it's Osaka Castle in 1614."

"Is that something exciting?"

"Hmmm . . . well, from the Department of Internal Affairs history database, we can see that . . ." The Tachikoma's eye rotated and twisted as it accessed the public database, processing information, and the others waited.

"See what!"

"Oh, I see. That's pretty interesting . . . "

"What's so interesting? Let me sync that!"

"No, no, I want to tell you the story!"

"But that's so slow! And it won't be the same!"

"And you'll probably tell it all wrong!"

"It's what humans have to do, so let's try it." With an authoritative wave of a claw, the Tachikoma gestured stubbornly.

"Okay, fine! Just tell us!"

"Should we eat popcorn while you tell us? I heard humans do that, too."

"Shhhh!"

"All right . . . our story begins long ago, with a divided Japan . . . One shogun who was successful at uniting Japan under one government was Nobunaga. After he died, one of his officials named Hideyoshi took power." The Tachikoma jumped on a crate, and the others scooted closer with interest. "When Hideyoshi died, he passed the kingdom on to his young son Hideyori, with regents appointed to rule until the son came of age."

"Oh, yeah, humans like giving stuff to their offspring."

"Do you think we'd feel the same way, if we had offspring?"

"How's **that** going to happen; isn't that a biological process?"

"Well, if we can develop personalities, maybe we could also develop biologically . . . ?"

"Maybe if we created an AI . . . "

"Just listen to the story!"

"Okay, okay."

"Anyway, the regents wanted the power for themselves, and eventually a man named Tokugawa became the most powerful. When Hideyori was about to come of age, Tokugawa attacked Osaka castle where he lived to ensure he could not challenge his claim for rulership over Japan."

"Attacked him? Is Tokugawa a bad guy?"

"If he attacked him with forethought, that'd be first-degree murder, right?"

"No, he sent an army, so it's considered a war. Things are different in wars." They thought about that for a moment, applying the seemingly conflicting data to their own experiences.

"Oh, like when we go attack terrorists, that must be like a war, and not murder, huh. Does that make us soldiers?"

"We'll have to think about that later! Right now I want to know what happens to the hero! Hideyori is the hero, right? Most stories have a hero."

The storyteller shook its head, body twisting emphatically, and announced, "If Hideyori's the hero, then this story is a tragedy . . . "

"Why, what happened!"

"Is there a pair of tragic lovers, like Romeo and Juliet?"

"Maybe **everyone** dies in the end!"

"It was 600 years ago, they're all dead by now!"

"But what really happened?"

"You'd know if you would stop interrupting! Sheesh . . . so, as I was saying, Tokugawa's armies attacked Hideyori's castle, but they managed to hold off the attacking armies, in part because of the tremendous fortifications of the castle." The Tachikoma paused, surveying its audience. "It wasn't until Tokugawa's men secretly filled in the moats of the castle that they were able to overcome its defenses. Then Hideyori and his mother committed suicide, and Tokugawa's rule over Japan was unchallenged. The end." The Tachikoma were silent.

". . . "

"They should have dug better moats, I guess."

"That's a dumb story! The bad guy won!"

"I don't like history," one said, turning around and starting to walk away.

"It's not a story! That's what happened! And Tokugawa's victory led to a united, peaceful Japan for the next 250 years, so it's not really fair to call him 'the bad guy'."

"Well if he's not the bad guy, then who is?"

"Does every story have to have a bad guy?"

"Maybe Hideyori's the bad guy, and Tokugawa had a good reason for attacking him."

"Hmmm, I don't know . . . maybe we should ask someone." Just then, Ishikawa entered the room and looked around, a little blearily.

"What are you guys up to so late at night," he asked.

"Ishikawa-san! We have a question!"

"A question, huh. All right, I guess if I came all the way down here, I can humor you guys."

"Okay, here's our question: who's the bad guy, Tokugawa or Hideyori?"

"Hmmm? You mean, those guys during the 16th century Reunification? Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi's son?"

"Yeah, those guys! We read the story, but we don't understand it."

"Well, there's an old saying that goes, 'Nobunaga piled the rice, Hideyoshi kneaded the dough, and Tokugawa ate the cake.'"

"Huh! What's that mean?"

"Was the cake tasty?"

"But who harvested the rice?"

"What about Hideyori?"

Ishikawa laughed, enjoying their confusion just a little bit, and turned to leave. "Sorry, explanations aren't my specialty, and I have to get back to work. Try not to be so noisy, okay? I thought maybe there was a problem down here or something."

"Yes, sir!" The elevator doors closed behind him, and the Tachikoma stood in the silence of processing for a few minutes.

"So . . . I still don't understand it."

"Maybe it means that even warring generals can be good cooks."

"Maybe it means that, instead of fighting, people should just eat cake together."

"Maybe it means that they all played important roles in the peace and unification of Japan, so we can forgive some of their faults and just enjoy the results."

"..."

"..."

"..." One Tachikoma twirled an eye turret nesciently.

"Maybe we need more data. I think I'll go research rice cakes."

"I wanna read Romeo and Juliet again."

"I wonder if there's a schematic of the moats in the database . . . "

"Can I sync the history from you now? Maybe it will make more sense that way."

"Oh . . . sure."

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Author's Notes: _I kind of miss the Tachikomatic Days from the first season -- this was a little longer, but hopefully in the same vein._


	8. Persistence of Memory

Persistence of Memory 

_"Historical events are infinitely variable and their interpretations are a constantly shifting process. There are no certainties to be found in the past."  
-Gerda Lerner_

"Hey, you're here early." Ishikawa swiveled around in his chair to greet Batou, who was still in his jogging sweats. Batou turned a chair around, backwards, and sat down.

"Yeah, I finished my jog and didn't have anything better to do."

Ishikawa chuckled, "You're still jogging?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with that," Batou replied defensively.

"You're just putting wear and tear on your cybernetic parts, you know. It's not like they're going to get rusty overnight."

"Hey, it's not just about keeping in shape. It's about mental focus, and discipline -- stuff like that."

"Oh, really? Mental focus, huh? It doesn't seem to help much," Ishikawa smirked, not unkindly, and Batou winced exaggeratedly.

"Ouch. Are you going to fill me in on what you've been up to, or do you just want to throw insults at me all morning?"

"Well, I'm actually all done -- they had eight terminals in the lab, and six of them had useful parts, so I put them together piecemeal to make two working terminals."

"Oh, that's good . . . hey, wait, have you been here all night?"

"Yeah -- once I got started, I just wanted to finish it up. It took a little longer than I thought."

"Hmm, sounds like you're putting 'wear and tear' on that biological body of yours. Sure you don't need me to check your work?"

"Touchè. But I did get a little sleep, once I was done . . . Anyway, I checked it out for viruses and malevolent code, and the strange thing is, it's totally clean. The code's even pretty good, considering most of it was written by university students. There doesn't seem to be any reason why it would cause those researchers to go into a coma."

Batou looked over at the naked terminals, their innards spread out on the table and connected via a snarl of wires. He couldn't decide whether they looked like mutilated murder victims or a bizarre alien multipedal organism. "I guess we'll find out once the Major gets here."

"I'm already here," she announced, entering the lab. "The Chief wants us to meet in the briefing room before we get started." They nodded, and followed her down the hall.

* * *

Aramaki explained what Ishikawa had found out about the system, and, face serious, continued, "Since we don't know exactly what caused the researchers to fall into a coma, we are going to monitor the dive very closely. I don't want us taking any unnecessary risks. Please report anything unusual to the Major." He nodded to her, and she continued,

"Ishikawa, I want you to do the main dive. Batou will go with you and watch your back." They nodded, clearly not unhappy with the assignment. "Borma, Togusa -- you will be in the lab, monitoring their cyberbrains and the main system. The androids will be keeping a watch on vital signs, as well as monitoring the firewall and external activity. The Tachikoma, Paz, and Saito are going to monitor the internal network, analyzing the packets between the main system and the terminals, and intervene if necessary. And I," she said, seeing the questioning look on Batou's face, "will be in the lab coordinating all the data reports and running my own data analysis." He grinned at her, and she looked away. "Let's get started."

* * *

With five people and the extra computers in the lab, it was a little crowded, but there was still room to breathe, for those that required breathing. Everyone was listening on the general Section 9 channel.

"Androids ready."

"Tachikoma ready!" Perky as always, their voice was like a jolt of caffeine.

"Paz ready."

"Saito ready."

"Borma ready." Borma's attention was fixed on the array of windows up on the large screen, each monitoring something different with graphs and visualizers and rows of text. In the upper right hand corner, he had patched in to Ishikawa and Batou's visual feeds.

"Togusa ready." Standing behind Borma, he watched the data come in.

"Batou ready." He shifted a little in the chair next to Ishikawa.

"Ishikawa ready." Comfortably seated in his usual chair, he sounded almost bored.

"All right, begin the dive." The Major leaned on Batou's chair, intently watching both Borma's screen and Ishikawa's, which had feeds from the androids' and Tachikomas' monitoring. "Go slowly, and be prepared to pull out if necessary."

Synchronously, Ishikawa and Batou reached out cords from their dummy barriers and plugged them to their respective terminals. The lab was silent except for the gentle whirring of computer fans, and a quiet _tap_ as they plugged in. The Major noticed a spike in CPU activity on the server, and the data flow between terminals and server rose sharply. No unauthorized cyberbrain access, though, or attack code. She waited, unblinking.

"I'm in," Ishikawa reported, "Looks like Osaka Castle." From his visual feed on Borma's screen, she could see that he was standing near a courtyard on a rampart high above a moat, with another moat farther down below.

"Whoa! I almost didn't recognize you, there, in that get-up," Batou exclaimed, his visual feed showing an Ishikawa dressed in full samurai armor. The lacquered iron scales covered all but his right arm, and a double-crested iron helmet topped his head. A quiver of arrows and a bow stuck out from behind his head, and he wore two swords on his left hip, the katana and wakizashi.

"I'm surprised you didn't notice that you're dressed the same way." The Major watched as Batou looked down to see that he was similarly garbed, but with a winged helmet instead of a crested one. He gave a short laugh.

"I guess am . . . somehow it feels like I've worn this all my life . . ." Batou trailed off, as if thinking.

"If the fashion show is over," the Major broke in with only the merest suggestion of amusement, "then start looking for those researchers that are supposedly still logged in." The tension somewhat broken, the atmosphere relaxed slightly, but all were still tightly focused on monitoring their data.

"I've patched into the server's user data section . . . looks like they're in the castle itself," Ishikawa remarked. "I see activity on their avatars, so something's alive -- " He stopped mid-sentence.

"Ishikawa?" the Major asked. When there was no response, she demanded, "Batou!" He, too, was silent. She spoke urgently through the broadcast comlink. "Report!"

"There is increased brain activity in the hippocampus area of their temporal lobes, but nothing out of the ordinary," one android reported.

"Sorry, Major," Batou finally spoke, "it's a little hard to concentrate; some samurai's memories keeping breaking into my head."

Togusa broke in, his voice calm, "From the research notes I read before the lab was destroyed, the system is designed to immerse the user in a set of synthesized memories and experiences interpolated from various historical sources from the simulation's time period." The Major just looked at him. Even if this was normal behavior for the system, it was still unnerving.

"Everything's fine," Ishikawa added, "though I find myself worrying about this guy's wife and kids -- I feel like Togusa or something." Borma seemed to find this particularly funny, but the Major was not amused.

"Fine. Just hurry up and see what you can find." Batou and Ishikawa began to walk towards the castle.

"The place is pretty empty . . . you'd think there'd be more soldiers." Batou scanned the area, revealing siege deterrents, weapon racks, and other military equipment, but only a few men patrolling the ramparts and watching the gates.

"Hmmm . . . I read a proposal for synthesizing AIs inside the system based on accumulated historical data, but it sounded like it was still in the testing stages," Togusa surmised. The Major nodded, and ordered,

"Continue."

"Seems like an attack is expected at any time," Ishikawa noted, "The gates are shut tight." The Major looked to Togusa for confirmation, and he added,

"The simulation is from just before Tokugawa's attack on Osaka castle in 1614, just after the Battle of Sekigahara." She nodded, and asked,

"Ishikawa, do you still have a lock on the researchers' avatars?"

Ishikawa looked up at the castle. "Everyone must be inside," he said, and then added, "Must be time for Toyotomi-dono's speech." Motoko had a strange feeling of dread, like she was trying to shout but no sound was coming out . . . _Oh no . . . I've already lost them._

"Batou! Ishikawa! Status," she demanded, knowing it was futile.

"We'll be late, you know," Batou remarked to Ishikawa.

"Well, it's all in the name of duty," Ishikawa laughed, "Say, what's the latest news from the scouts?"

"Not sure," Batou responded, shaking his head as they crossed the bridge of the upper moat. "That's probably what the meeting's about." _They're completely gone . . . why didn't I notice sooner!_ Looking at their physical bodies, reclining motionless in chairs in the computer lab, they seemed formless, like the shed exoskeleton of a locust that crumbles to dust when touched..

Togusa gasped. "Major . . . are they . . . ?"

With an icy hot glare around the room, Motoko strode over to the server. "I'm going in."

"But . . . how? There's no more terminals," Borma asked, furrowing his brow in puzzlement.

"I'm connecting straight to the server's data port." She drew out the connectors from her dummy barrier in a smooth, practiced motion, and got ready to plug them in. "None of you are to follow; is that clear?" They nodded, trusting, and she jacked in with a single, stabbing motion.


	9. Ghost Whispers

**Ghost Whispers**

_I worshiped dead men for their strength,  
Forgetting I was strong. -Vita Sackville-West _

Shiori woke up pinned beneath a soft, heavy weight. The last thing she remembered was running back to the makeshift earthen wall with a bucket full of rocks for her and her husband to throw . . . had they overrun the village? She had to get out from . . . where? She shifted, and a familiar, human smell tickled her senses. Was it? _I'm looking for someone . . . _She recognized her husband's shoulder that rested on her chin. She shook him, but he didn't move. Was he dead? She heard sounds of battle, screaming and thudding, but they seemed far away.

She tried to move, but there was another body piled on top of her husband's. Finding his face, she felt for breath, but found none. She felt a dull ache in her head and in her chest. She thought maybe she should cry, but she wasn't sure she could. She never expected their three months of marriage to end like this . . . she had felt so fortunate, to have a good husband, quiet, sincere, and hard-working, and a mother-in-law that brought her into their family with love. She had hoped that she would be able to give them a son . . . maybe, even now, she was carrying his child . . . she did feel different, like a new person . . . but it was probably just wishful thinking . . . _Looking for someone . . . he can't be dead . . . _

Waking up again, Shiori realized she had passed out. Clutching a fallen bamboo spear, she dug it into the ground and tried to use it as leverage to pull herself out. Inch by inch, she wriggled from beneath the corpses. When she could finally stand, she looked around. Everyone who had been fighting by her side, neighbors and friends and soldiers from the castle, were strewn out like harvested rice stalks, peppered with wounds from the attacking armies arquebuses and arrows. She ached all over, and was startled to find blood on her jacket, only to find that it was her husband's. _I've been sleeping . . . for how long?_

She shivered in the cool air, autumn succumbing to winter's bite. Was there something she should be doing? It seemed folly to seek out the attackers and face them by herself . . . the battle seemed to have moved in the direction of her farm . . . the soldiers would be seeking out their hidden winter food stores . . . no point in going back there. She had never planned for these sorts of events . . . was she supposed to cut off her hair and become a nun or something? Maybe she was supposed to make a suicidal attempt at revenge? Or just sit and cry in the wreckage? She felt too numb to bring up any tears. Maybe this was a dream, and soon she'd wake up next to her husband and laugh that she had been so worried.

Looking off to the west, she wondered if her cousin Yasuhiko had got through to the castle to warn them. A bizarre silhouette in the distance caught her gaze, and as it approached, she could tell that it was the village's only horse, the one Yasuhiko rode off on this morning. He must not have made it.

The horse trotted along patiently, and she watched, thinking. Yes, she would go to Osaka Castle and warn Lord Toyotomi of Tokugawa's armies. And, after that? Maybe there would be a place for her there. Having decided on a course of action, she felt a surprisingly strong sense of resolve. _To Osaka Castle . . . _

* * *

"That's it, just a little bit more. You're doing well," Sumeko encouraged. She knelt, ready to catch the newborn in a few moments, her joints creaking. She had helped with many births over the years, though she had never had a child of her own. In fact, she remembered when this woman, who was now giving birth, had been born, twenty-five years ago. It made Sumeko feel very old and weary.

"Is . . . the baby . . . close," the laboring woman asked, as she tried to catch her breath between pushes.

"Yes, yes, just a few more good pushes, and then we'll see this new baby of yours." The soon-to-be mother strained, clutching the pallet on which she sat up, supported by her mother. Sumeko patiently rubbed the woman's legs, and chanted softly with her as she pushed again. Breathe. Push. Breathe. Push. "Good, I see the head . . . this time don't push, go slow." The woman nodded as she breathed, and when the next contraction came, she chanted softly, straining. Sumeko chanted with her, encouraging her, but felt a little distracted. _I need to go . . . go where?_

And then the baby slipped out, like a fish flopping from a net, and Sumeko wiped him off, checked to see he was healthy, and handed him to his mother. She cried a little, but she was also smiling. The infant just stared at her, as though worrying he would never see her again. _What if I never see him again? Who?_

When the afterbirth was taken care of, and the new mother was wrapped in a large sash and dozing next to the baby, Sumeko found herself walking stiffly out the front door of the small house and gazing up at Osaka Castle. _I have to get to the castle . . . _

* * *

Akiko loved playing outside. Being inside meant she had to be quiet, and couldn't run, and had to try and stay out of sight. There weren't very many fun things for a five-year-old girl to do in the castle. Sometimes she could sneak out; her mom was Senhime's personal maid and was busy a lot. _I was going to look for someone, at the castle . . ._ Today she was all the way down in the main courtyard, hiding in a corner in the shade and watching the fish swim in the pond. She closed her eyes, and the warm sun felt like pure life radiating through her. She felt like a little flower, or a frog, just living without any worries.

But now it was starting to get dark, and for some reason the soldiers seemed nervous, so she reluctantly said bye-bye to the fish and headed for the castle. _Have to get to the castle . . ._ Now that she was walking, she felt hungry, too. An urgent desire to get inside made her quicken her pace. _Where are those two?_

* * *

Like a bat against a moonless, misty sky, Chiyo clambered up her rope on the castle wall and slipped over. Her deft steps took her through the fallen leaves of the courtyard with grace and silence. Silken black folds concealed all but her eyes from the searching archers and guards above as she darted behind an evergreen bush and scanned the area. Her father had been assigned the mission to come to the castle and scope out the defenses and sabotage the weapons stores, but when he fell ill, she took it upon herself to continue the family's tradition of clandestine service to Tokugawa. It would pay for some medicine, at least. _Medicine won't help them . . . they need me . . . _

Despite her determination, however, she still found herself wondering if she was up to the task. She hadn't been trained as well as her father, and these were professional soldiers she was trying to evade. Her legs quivered a little as she crouched, and she tried to replace thoughts of what would happen if she were caught with the thought of getting the medicine for her father.

She counted guards, noted positions of weapons and food stores and explosives, and tried to remember what else she was supposed to find. _At the castle . . . what am I looking for? Or, who?_ She caught a glimpse of a lone samurai in full armor patrolling with his back toward her, and she had an odd sensation akin to deja vu, or waking up in a strange place, or seeing someone she knew a long time ago. Something that had been nudging the back of her mind exploded.

_I'm . . . _Dual mists of memories and desires and histories clashed in a ghostly battle, with her consciousness smashed in the middle. _. . . Motoko._ She struggled, trying to identify some sort of hacking attack or assailant, some root cause of the problem that she could eliminate, but instead of digital traces, there was only a whisper of a person that turned to a roar as Chiyo threatened to take over her consciousness again.

Sneaking closer to the castle itself, she noticed a low building to the right -- a barracks? It would be a good way to get a head count at night -- Tokugawa would be pleased with such precision, though her heart raced with fear at the thought of voluntarily entering the den of numerous strong, well-trained soldiers. _No! Get out of my head!_

As Motoko gained awareness once more over Chiyo, she fought to anchor herself against the ephemeral other-self that threatened to seep into her brain. Motoko quickly pulled up the virtual admin interface overlay, scanning for options. Simultaneously, she pulled up the admin code and saw a variable called "Immersion Mode" that appeared to control the memory-implanting loop, and another called "Ghostless Mode" that, when set, caused the user to be a passive observer of a sequence of different sets of memories. _Looks like they were in the middle of debugging admin mode -- the default is to loop through various people forever,_ she noted, as she disabled both variables.

Suddenly, it seemed very quiet, and she felt very pleasantly alone in her mind. Unfortunately, she was not so alone in the courtyard, for she had stopped in mid-step to battle against the foreign Chiyo's awareness. The samurai she had remembered earlier was coming closer, quickly. Options flew through her head like bullets. Too late to hide. Too slow to climb back over the wall. Too risky to try the castle doors. Feeling around her person, she discovered a short sword, and drew it, muscles responding sluggishly. _At least I ended up in the body of a warrior . . . though I feel like a baby, with these farmgirl muscles and these human eyes . . . it's so dark._ She could feel her heartbeat quickening, her muscles tensing, and her hands sweating in the clammy night air.

This felt more real than any other battle she could remember.

_It's Batou,_ she suddenly realized with dread. Half-hidden by his helmet, she could see only the highlights of his face in the torchlight, but she didn't doubt her recognition. She pulled up the admin interface again, but she couldn't find any commands that had to do with other users. _There's got to be something in here I can use . . . _He was within ear-shot, now. _What happens if someone dies in the system? Where does their ghost go?_ It wasn't a risk she wanted to take. She would have to find some way to release him without either of them being killed. "Batou, stand down," she shouted.

His too-familiar voice, saturated with disdain, called out to her as he drew his long katana. "We knew you'd be coming, you sneaking Tokugawa dog-scum. Now sit back and take what's coming to you!" Raising his katana, he stepped forward quickly, forcing her to leap back and to the side. The shorter reach of her ninja-to made a frontal attack unlikely to succeed. As she raced through calculations of velocity, friction, tactics, terrain, and psychological profiles, she also continued her searching through the code to find a way to free him as she had herself. But the user code settings were completely different from the admin code, so there was no obvious solution . . . yet.

Sword and man lunged forward as one, and she barely brought her thoughts back to the battle in time to parry the blow away. Batou's sword flashed like a waterfall, relentlessly pounding at her, but each strike was different from those before it. Her arms began to tire from the exertion of deflecting blows, and she was breathing heavily. She counter-attacked, knowing he would block it, but needing more space to dodge, and more time to think. They had sparred so many times in practice that she knew what his moves would be, but the human woman whose body she inhabited was so much weaker than the hardened samurai he was immersed in.

She heard the arrow flying towards her with just enough time to flip to the side. As she leapt, pinwheeling like a leaf caught in a gust of air, she caught sight of the arrow as it whizzed by and carressed her hair. She landed abruptly, wincing as the frail body she inhabited screamed of pain and bruises and unfamiliar movements. As she calculated a probable trajectory for the arrow, her eyes followed it back to the source, and she spotted another familiar face. Ishikawa peered over a second-story balcony, bow in hand. As he drew another arrow, he yelled, "She's over here!"


	10. No Carrier

_History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.  
-Winston Churchill_

Motoko was not the retreating type. Normally, her artificial strength and agility, as well as her battle instincts and bleeding edge firepower, made fighting most opponents an almost relaxing dance of precision and beauty. This battle was different -- with inferior muscle and weapons, being outnumbered, and the added burden of not being able to kill her opponent, no matter how many times she calculated out strategies and probabilities, there was no good outcome.

But Motoko was also not the dying type, so she decided to flee, gritting her teeth and promising herself that she would come back later, with additional firepower or ideas or **something** that would enable her to break Batou out of his possessed state without killing him. The next time he slashed at her, she sidestepped the blade, then spun around behind him and darted towards a small stand of trees that grew next to the castle. She quickly swung up, and pressed herself to the trunk of the tree, breathing heavily.

"Fleeing to save your own life, rather than completing your mission," she heard Batou call out below her, searching, "I should have expected it from a dishonorable ninja like yourself, but I find myself amazed at your cowardice!" Additional soldiers arrived, having heard the noises of battle, and Batou sent them out with torches to search the grounds.

"She's in the trees," Ishikawa yelled, and an arrow suddenly pierced the trunkbelow her. She deftly slid across the branch, closer to the castle roof, and then leapt. As she jumped, she broke off and threw a small branch to the other side of the courtyard, and the noise of its landing distracted the guards from the muffled clink of roof tiles as she landed, and she rounded a corner out of Ishikawa's view. The soft shoes she wore made little noise as she scrambled up the roof and hopped onto the balcony, ducking behind a railing to conceal herself from those below.

Motoko's breathing was muffled by the black cloth wound about her face, but she still made an effort to quiet it, even though the effort stabbed at her lungs as they floundered for air. She realized her hands were shaking.

"Can you see her," Ishikawa called, "I think she went around to the west side."

"I saw her climb onto the balcony on your level, but I don't see her now -- I'm going to go inside and come up. Wait there." Batou turned to two nearby guards and said, "Keep searching -- make sure she doesn't escape!"

As she climbed up higher, she planned on somehow disabling Ishikawa so she would only have one major opponent to deal with. She couldn't ghost hack him -- she was limited to what the Historical Immersion System allowed in the admin interface. She thought about forcibly terminating his connection to the system, but she wasn't sure where his ghost would go. A sudden break in the flow of memories could cause serious psychological damage, perhaps drowning the user's ego in a brawl of identities.

She stopped for a moment, listening. Had he moved? No -- there, footsteps, he was moving away. If there was an Immersion Mode variable, like the one she had previously used to stop the memories flooding into her own mind, that would break the flow of memories so that she could log him out, but there was no such variable for regular users.

Quiet footsteps beneath her drew closer, and she shifted closer to the roof edge. Listening intently, she suddenly swung down, feet landing squarely onto Ishikawa's armored chest. With a quiet grunt of air he flew backwards, directly into a castle support beam. He slumped forward, unconscious, and she smiled with a sudden revelation. _If he's not conscious, the flow of memories stops naturally._

Now she could safely log him out without conflicting with the stream of memories, and his ghost would return to his body. Hopefully. Ghost Theory was still just theory, along with some empirical evidence, but having had extensive field experience in it, Motoko felt confident enough to terminate his connection. There was no obvious visual change -- his body still lay there, motionless -- but through the admin interface she could see that he was indeed disconnected.

_"Chiyo" had one good idea -- I need to scope out the castle to find the researchers and come up with a better plan to log them out, too._ Slinking along the balcony, she noted the layout and the location of the guards, barracks, and outer ladders and stairways. From the admin interface, she could see that there was one researcher in the barracks, one patrolling the grounds, one on the third floor, and two on the top floor. She also found Batou -- he was on the second floor, headed for the balcony where she sat.

_There's no way I'll be able to knock him unconscious, especially from here,_ she thought, as she slid down the roof and into the courtyard. A small group of soldiers saw her and gave a yell, running towards her.

_At least I don't have to be carefull of killing the computer-controlled avatars,_ she thought grimly, drawing a small knife from a pocket in her sleeve and throwing it in one quick motion. It caught one of them in the neck, and he went down, and suddenly several of his companions went down also.

"Major, do you read me," Ishikawa's voice came in suddenly through her cyber communications interface.

"I read you, Ishikawa," she replied, relieved but not surprised.

"Thanks for getting me out of there -- though I'm still trying to catch my breath after that kick of yours. Anyway, I patched into your admin link through your dummy barrier, and then took the liberty of hacking the source code to disable the computer-controlled avatars. It was a little tricky to recompile and patch it in while the system was live, but I thought you'd appreciate it," he said, sounding pleased.

"Good," she told him, as she moved over into the shadow of the castle. "I should be able to free the researchers in the same way, but since their bodies aren't connected directly to the system anymore, their ghosts won't know where to go. Chief, can we send in someone to connect the researchers' cyberbrains to the system through the net?" She assumed the Chief was listening as well, and she was right.

"I'm afraid that's too risky. Section 1 currently has jurisdiction on this case -- since they have not finished apprehending the suspects involved, there may still be an operative on Akimoto's payroll among the hospital personnel. We have reason to believe that the researchers are being closely monitored, and any interference would most likely result in a medical 'accident' of some sort. If they were to recover, they would be classified as protected witnesses and immediately discharged to Section 1. At that point, it would be much more difficult for them to meet an untraceable death."

They all thought silently for a moment, and then Ishikawa spoke up, "According to Kawazumi's latest paper on Ghost Theory, ghosts don't necessarily need a physical pathway to travel -- just a logical one."

"A logical pathway," Togusa asked, "How's that different?"

Ishikawa explained, "Well, it is still theory, but basically it means that ghosts can travel along any route that they can conceive of. The most common routes we think of are the ones through the net, but a wireless connection should also work, or even a carrier pigeon."

"Well, we're not going to use pigeons, but I need you to work on some kind of link that can run undetected from the Historical Immersion System to the researchers in the hospital," the Major said.

"Roger."

"What about Batou," Togusa asked. Motoko sighed inwardly. If she could catch him by surprise, the way she did Ishikawa, she might be able to knock him unconscious . . . but with his body mass and battle instincts, it would be difficult . . . She glanced up to the balcony where Ishikawa lay, and spied Batou kneeling there, probably checking Ishikawa's avatar's vital signs. She managed to overhear him speaking,

"Kosuke . . . I was too late . . ." For a moment, she heard nothing, and then he vowed, "Your death cries out for justice, and I will answer that call!"

"I'll get him out," Motoko stated over the comlink with determination. _Somehow . . . _.


	11. RE: Incarnation

_"History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again."  
-Kurt Vonnegut_

"Tachikoma, Borma, get ready to dive," Ishikawa requested, pulling down the dive interface. Borma nodded. Togusa, continuing to monitor the feeds from the system, then asked,

"So, what was it like in there?"

"Like reincarnation," Ishikawa answered wryly. Really, there was no way to describe the mental confusion and interference of another person's psyche into his own. Even now, a word, a tone of voice, a concept would bring to mind a memory fragment, and he found himself analyzing it to see if it truly belonged to him, or if it was from Sosuke. He couldn't actively recall Sosuke's memories like he could when inside the Historical Immersion System, but he **remembered** remembering them. Even now, he wondered if he was still the same person, or if the samurai's memories and personality had tweaked his own irrevocably. _I think, therefore I am, right?_

"What's reincarnation, anyway," a Tachikoma asked.

"It means a new birth into a different body," another answered authoritatively.

"What do you mean a 'new birth'? Can't you only be born once?"

"I don't know; that's just what the dictionary says! But maybe if we analyze its Latin roots . . .Let's see, "re", meaning "again", with "carn" meaning flesh . . . hmmmm . . ."

"So it's like reheating a steak or something?"

"That doesn't seem right!"

"Which part means heat?"

"You're taking it too literally!"

Ishikawa finally broke in, amused. "It's a belief that, when a person dies, they are born into a different body. Kind of like when you guys were reconstructed from the AIs of the old Tachikoma shells that got destroyed.

"Ohhh . . ." The Tachikoma were silent for a few moments, processing this new information.

"Anyway, we've got to make a virtual pathway to those guys at New Tokyo University Hospital. Tachikoma, look for a good backdoor via the University. Borma, find a useable connection between the university and the hospital. Make sure there are plenty of hops inbetween -- we get traced, and the patients are in danger."

"What about you, Ishikawa-kun," the Tachikoma asked cheekily.

"If you finish your work fast enough, maybe I'll let you watch."

"Oooh!" The three of them set to work, diving within the net to make a twisted, untraceable pathway through virtual space. The silence of focused concentration was broken, though, as Togusa asked,

"So, is there any proof for Kawazumi's theories?"

"Proof? Well, I don't know if I'd call it proof . . . but there's a lot of convincing evidence," Ishikawa answered. "They did some analysis on meditating monks -- experienced ones -- and they could actually detect a dissipation of electrical impulses on external Ghost interface equipment as they reached higher stages of mindfulness. One monk was supposedly even able to control an empty prosthetic body from the other side of the room, by transferring his Ghost. Some of the methodology was called into question, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's true. It's not so different from when the Major's Ghost survived in the net when she was shot by that sniper."

"I see . . ," Togusa said thoughtfully. A Tachikoma interjected,

"Hey, if it's possible to transfer a Ghost like that, does that mean that someone could live forever by moving their Ghost around?"

"Well, theoretically . . . but in order for a transfer to take place, the Ghost has to have a strong will and strong desire. Also, in Kawazumi's research, as people aged, they were less able to transfer their Ghosts."

"Oh . . . " The Tachikoma appeared to be thinking this over, but then several of them broken in with more questions.

"Does this mean old people aren't as strong? I thought old people were supposed to be wise . . ."

"Why don't they just keep a backup on the net?"

"But, where does their Ghost go then? When someone dies?"

Ishikawa shrugged. "They did monitor some people as they were dying, but tracking Ghosts is not that easy to do, so that's still a mystery."

"Wow, you're really into this stuff, aren't you," Borma exclaimed with a smile.

"Nah, actually I just read some research papers yesterday because I thought it might be useful for this case." He grinned, a somewhat disconcerting sight since his eyes were still focused on the dive interface. "Now, are you guys almost done with those connections?"

"Yes, sir! We've connected through an unsecured server in the University dorms," a Tachikoma answered proudly.

"Yeah, I've got a path to the hospital via an outdated machine in the basement," affirmed Borma.

"Good. Come on over here, and we'll put them all together." Within the net, the avatars of the Tachikoma and Borma slid over to join Ishikawa. A tangle of connections glowed around him, like a vast tumbleweed, and Borma whistled in disbelief.

"You connected each patient's heartrate monitor to a different nurse's phone! Unbelievable . . . and, wait, isn't that mass over there a bunch of cooking droids?"

"He's using the entertainment terminal as a bridge between floors! Ah, Ishikawa-kun, it's so beautiful," a Tachikoma shouted excitedly.

Ishikawa chuckled, clearly pleased. "Not at all. But it will all be for nothing if this doesn't work. So let's connect the Tachikoma's network to Borma's using an indirect route . . . and now to the hospital . . . check connection stability . . . looking good . . ."

* * *

"Major," Ishikawa's voice broke in through the comlink as she hid near the top of an aging oak tree.

"I read you. Have you forged a pathway for the researchers yet?"

"Yes, it's all done."

"Good." She flipped down out of the tree noiselessly, wincing as she landed, and sprinted across the courtyard. Pulling out her short sword, she brought the hilt down squarely on the back of a soldier's neck. _This should be Tanaka . . ._ As he lost consciousness and flopped to the ground, she disconnected him from the system.

"Tanaka's disconnected," she informed Ishikawa through the comlink.

"Roger that," he responded, "We're seeing an elevated heartrate and a nurse on the way to his room, so I'm guessing that it worked."

"Major, please hurry with the others, so that no one gets suspicious before they wake up."

"I'm on it, Chief." Even as she spoke, she was already running around to the barracks. Stopping for a moment to listen, when all was quiet she slipped through the door, blocking the open door crack with her body so light would not enter. She spied him lying on a bunk, and then tensed as she saw him move. By his breathing patterns she could tell that he was asleep. _I guess my work's already done, here._ She logged him out, and his avatar stopped breathing.

"Fujiwara's done," Motoko reported.

"Good, good . . . I don't see any sign from the hospital that he's recovered, but I suppose it could take a while."

"No time to worry about that now." She was already tracking the next researcher, who appeared to be patrolling the third floor of the castle. Finding a narrow gap between the external barracks wall and the castle wall, she jumped from side to side until she could grab hold of the balcony railing and swing over. _Looks like Batou's near the stairs to the third floor . . . _

Analyzing the castle layout, she found another route to the third floor, a ladder leading to a storage room. Slipping in and out of shadows, stepping over bodies that Ishikawa had disabled, she searched for the next researcher, Watanabe. _He's very close -- he must be in one of these bedrooms._ She turned a corner, and there he was, dressed in a fine-looking sleeping kimono, walking softly down the hall. As she neared, ready to strike, he turned just before she reached him.

"Who--" he began, but was cut off as she rushed him, and with a leg sweep and jab to the throat he fell to the ground. She pinned him with her forearm to his throat, preventing his breathing, and though he struggled like a wide-eyed fish, his eyes soon rolled back as he fell unconscious. Quickly, she released him and terminated his connection.

"Watanabe's down," she announced over the comlink, and crept swiftly up a small stairway at the end of the hall.

"Roger that. Should be two more, Professor Ogawa and another assistant. Looks like they're on the top floor," Ishikawa noted.

"I'm already there."

* * *

Miyoshi Seikai had never seen such bloodless carnage in his life. He had seen many men fall on the field of battle, some with small wounds, some with great -- but always there was an explanation for their deaths. Always there was a sword, a spear, an arrow, a soldier who was responsible. Even the dagger of an assassin left a visible wound, though the assassin might flee. But this . . .

Everywhere he walked in the castle, lifeless bodies stared at him accusingly. None had any visible wound, not even a rope mark or bruise on the neck. A cook, a courtier; a foot soldier, a samurai; a laundress' baby, the Lady Yodo herself -- all lay unmoving. None had tried to flee; none looked surprised. It was as if they had simply . . . stopped.

Was it a silent disease? Some foul poison in the air? Divine punishment, meted out suddenly and mercilessly? Or perhaps he was going insane . . . No, it must be the work of that ninja, the woman from before. He had never quite believed a ninja could have supernatural powers, but it was the only explanation that made any sense. He remembered her hard eyes that did not fear, her skill when they fought, her lithe form melting into the night like rain into a pond. He must find her. He was the only one left, as far as he could see, the only one who could stop this honorless she-demon, or die trying.

_The only one . . . _Suddenly he remembered Lord Hideyori and Lady Senhime. If they, too, had been subjected to this malevolent magic, then he truly was masterless, alone. But if they were alive . . . he must protect them.

Batou turned and ran up the stairs, two at a time.

_Hideyori-sama . . . _

Just then, a high-pitched scream pierced through the halls like a flaming arrow. He quickened his pace to three stairs at a time.

* * *

Motoko stepped into a large bedroom, and was momentarily blinded by the bright light of a fire burning within. A man's voice spoke,

"Well, now, who's this? You're not one of the people the system created, are you?" As her eyes adjusted, she could see a young man in imperial robes sitting at a low table. His face was smooth and unwrinkled, but his eyes sparkled with wisdom and age. Nearby, a beautiful young woman lay under a thick blanket on a futon, but she sat up groggily when the man spoke.

"Dear? Did you say something?" Suddenly, she spotted Motoko and gasped. "Who is that!"

"Professor Ogawa," Motoko asked, and when the man nodded, she continued, "I'm with Public Security Section 9. I'm here to help you get out."

"Get out? Section 9," he asked, puzzled, "Is there a problem with the system?"

"You and your assistants were hospitalized when you fell into a coma. That was four days ago." His eyes widened for a moment, and then he looked thoughtful.

"Has it been that long? I suppose it has. I guess I was just enjoying the immersion in history. You have, too, haven't you, Yumeko-kun?" He smiled, and turned to the young woman, who looked at him with sudden apprehension.

"Yumeko," she asked, truly puzzled. Then, she turned to Motoko. "My grandfather sent you, didn't he? And somehow you've put a spell on my husband, or had something put in his tea to make him say these strange things. Hideyori, you mustn't trust her." She came over and touched his hand gently. He looked at her, confused.

"Yumeko, you can stop pretending now. It has been wonderful to experience this history with you, but it sounds like we need to log out now."

Motoko nodded, and added, "There was an attempted bombing of the Historical Immersion System at the University, orchestrated by Akimoto Hiroshi. He is now in custody, but you may still be in danger. Please log out now."

"Log out?" Yumeko struggled to sound out the foreign phrase. "What are you two talking about! Dear, just look at her," she pleaded, gesturing to Motoko's black-swathed form. "It's obvious this is part of Tokugawa's attack on the castle -- he plans to undermine you from within with this, this ninja's mind tricks." She was pleading now, and her hands were clenched in anger. When the Professor shook his head, she began to shout. "Guards! Guards! Help!"

"Professor, I'm going to have to log her out forcefully by rendering her unconscious. There's no time to explain," Motoko informed him.

He nodded sadly. "I understand. Yumeko, dear, please trust her. Or, if you can't trust her, trust me." He reached for her hand, but she pulled back in fear.

"If even you are against me, then I would rather perish with honor by my own hand." She drew a dagger from her kimono sleeve and pointed it at her midsection.

Motoko wasted no time. If the girl wouldn't log out on her own, she would just have to give her a hand. Crossing the space between them with a running leap, she grabbed her wrist and twisted, pressing her fingers back until she dropped the knife. Smoothly, she seized both sides of Yumeko's kimono collar and tightened it, stopping the blood flow to the brain from the carotid artery. The girl screamed and pummeled Motoko's chest with her fists, but soon her struggles weakened. When she collapsed, Motoko logged her out and turned to the Professor. He was staring at Senhime's crumpled form, still beautiful even without a Ghost.

"So real . . ," he whispered, touching her cheek gently. Motoko cleared her throat impatiently. She thought she heard footsteps dashing up the stairs.

"Can you log out on your own?"

He jumped a little, then inclined his head. "I shall try. I hope to hear a more thorough explanation from you when I do." She nodded impatiently. The Professor took a deep breath, and then fell across the table, lifeless. Motoko looked up to see Batou filling the doorway, and she drew her sword. _He's the only one left . . . I can't put this off any longer._

He stood there, utterly still, for a long moment, looking like he was either going to collapse or explode. After a moment, he straightened, and looked her straight in the eyes. Normally blocked by the Ranger-issue optical implants, she could see his eyes here were deep obsidian, tinged with the flame of rage.


	12. Peer to Peer

_"History is neither written nor made without love or hate."  
-Theodor Mommsen_

Author's Note: _Thanks to my brother, a member of ARMA, for advising me on the combat of this chapter. And, of course, my co-author and editor, my husband._

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All she noticed were his eyes. She had never seen them in the real world, and it had been too dark and hectic in the courtyard. In that moment, she understood that there would be no other chances, no fleeing or hiding, no more waiting. This wouldn't end until one of them could no longer fight. Her borrowed body felt exhausted at the very thought. All her bruises and tired muscles throbbed in unison, the exertion of the night a foreign and unwelcome visitor.

"Batou . . , " she tried one last time, knowing it was useless.

"Silence, dog," he spat at her. "The breath you expend on your words pollutes the air far more than the stench of death from those you annihilated. Tokugawa may have won through your trickery, but you will perish here." He spoke with the fey emotionlessness of futility, the rage subsiding and giving place to diamond-hard concentration.

_Such hatred . . . _For a moment she wanted to weep - _another nuisance of this human shell!_ - but instead she pushed aside all her pain as an irrelevant annoyance, drawing up more adrenaline and determination from the bottomless well of her soul. She also used her off-hand to draw open a small pouch at her waist.

Then he rushed at her, drawing his katana and slashing down in one smooth motion like a diving hawk. He changed direction as she dodged, trying to follow her movements. She threw a fistful of black powder into his face from the pouch, and pulled the cord free. As he sputtered, and rubbed at his eyes, slashing blindly, she rushed behind him, looping the cord from the bag around his neck in an attempt to bring him to unconsciousness.

She tightened the cord, muscles straining, but just as she realized it was caught on his neck guard, he bent down forward suddenly and she toppled over his head and onto the ground. Thinking quickly, she snatched his wakizashi, attempting to slash his bent face in one swift stroke, but he jumped back and the sword met only air. As he dodged, however, he swung his katana upwards, and though she flung her head backwards, the tip sliced her chin up to her cheek. He blinked a few times, the powder still affecting his eyes.

_I'm not going to be able to knock him out, not with that armor. And it's way too risky to log him out conscious._ She held both her own sword and his, one in each hand, her cyberbrain calculating intercept vectors and torque points so that she could catch and block his blade.

His slashes were fast and unpredictable, like a swarm of bees, and it took all her concentration to parry them away. She saw a several places where she could follow through on her block with a potentially lethal blow, but if she killed him here, he might die outside the system as well. Her lack of armor was also a disadvantage; soon she was decorated with small cuts from glancing blows. Finally she saw an opening down low, and she slashed at his unarmored Achilles tendon.

Batou grunted in pain, but the chance she took left her open. He brought his blade up like a metal wing catching the wind, severing her outstretched right arm. For a moment she saw only blackness as she staggered backwards and felt a bizarre explosive pain of emptiness where her forearm used to be. Feeling sluggish, she watched as her own lifeless, disconnected hand spiralled away. The ninja sword she had used only moments earlier spun with it, only to come slicing through an innocent arrangement of chrysanthemums and scattering their petals to the floor. She looked down at her other hand, still clutching the wakizashi she had stolen from Batou. Blinking, she looked up, trying to focus.

Batou didn't wait for her to recover. Even as she backed away, he charged at her, katana aimed for her heart. Stumbling, she lurched away, and instead the blade pierced her right shoulder, further rendering her arm useless. He yanked his blade out and prepared to strike again.

Gasping for breath and clutching her shoulder, she futilely turned off pain reception in her cyberbrain, but it had no effect on her body within the system. Shoving away shock, she pulled up the admin interface. _I don't have any other choice_. As she logged him out of the system, she rolled away and jumped to her feet, waiting for Batou's avatar to crumple to the floor.

But he only paused long enough to hiss at her,

"What are you waiting for? Come at me, and die!"

Even Motoko was surprised. She had been worried about his Ghost not being able to find its way back amidst the stream of memories from the past, but she hadn't expected that it wouldn't even try to return. He was too attached to the system, the memories, the emotions . . . She turned and ran to buy herself some time, something he would never expect. It put her back to him, but she doubted he would take advantage of that. The samurai who controlled him was too used to "fair" fights.

"Ishikawa," she yelled over the comlink as she ran, "Unplug Batou from the system, and plug him into my secondary link!"

"Major, are you sure," he asked, "An unprotected peer-to-peer connection when he's in that state . . . what are you trying to do?"

"Do it now," she ordered, hearing heavy footsteps behind her. His newly-acquired limp wasn't slowing him much. She leapt over a futon, kicked a table up behind her to block the path, and toppled a shoji screen with her sword to try to slow him down.

"All right, it's done," Ishikawa reported, sounding uncharacteristically worried. There was only one way that would surely release his Ghost from its imprisonment here.

She let go of her sword to snatch up a down blanket from a nearby futon. Turning, she threw it at him as he stumbled over the screen. His katana sliced through the blanket, tearing the silken cover, and down feathers gushed out like blood. Through the swirling feathers she rolled, grabbing her sword from the ground, and dashed, past his katana. She held the sword outstretched, but it met only empty air, and soon they were face to face, her wrist level with his chin.

She brought the blade in, under his neck guard, pulling back with a long, deep slice to his neck where it would surely be fatal. His eyes, once grim, widened in surprise, and she sidestepped a spurt of his blood from his neck that threatened to drench her.

Batou's weapon clattered to the floor, no longer needed, and he fell forward. Instinctively, she tried to catch him, but instead her legs wavered and they both crashed to the ground. She could barely breathe under his weight.

A thin layer of pure white feathers drifted down to cover him like a shroud. Motoko exhaled, and a few feathers danced shyly away, the rest weighed down by his blood.

"Follow me," she whispered, knowing his Ghost was still nearby.

She logged out.

* * *

The obsession to kill the ninja was still there, but his body refused to obey his will. He watched her try to stop his fall, and it didn't make sense at all. _What kind of ninja kills someone, and then tries to lower them gently to the floor? Is this just a final mockery of my weakness?_ He tried to bring up his hands to throttle her, but his body, fickle at the end, simply ignored him. He could no longer stay in this shell.

As he watched her eyes, pained and intense, his hatred began to recede like the tide. And beneath the receding waves, remained that compulsive desire to seek. Somehow, now, he wasn't angry at the woman who just slit his throat. Well, a part of him was, but that part seemed to be separating from him, like an amoeba undergoing mitosis -- where was it going? He felt an urge to follow, but he felt a stronger urge to find her . . .

Like a nesting bird, he wandered, disembodied, searching, but he was totally lost. He had no mental map of this non-place, there were no landmarks, just collections of electrons and other . . . **essences** was the best word he could figure out. They weren't unfriendly, and he thought about stopping, but he knew that he was looking for something else. Someone else.

In a world of GPS coordinates and downloadable maps and building schematics and infallible visual memory replay, being lost was not a common occurrence. There was no one to ask for directions; just flows and nodes in all three dimensions. But, when he stopped to listen he felt a slight instinctive pull, like a gentle breeze at his back, that nudged him in one direction or another. He paused, listening to the breeze, and it spoke to him,

"Follow me."


	13. Parity, SYN, ACK, EOF?

**Parity, SYN, ACK, EOF?**

_People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.   
-James Baldwin_

" . . . and besides that, the wrap-up for this case will be handled by Section 1, so there's just a few things left for us to do." Aramaki addressed the gathered members of Section 9, "We need to take down the Historical Immersion System right away in preparation for its disposal this afternoon -- Ishikawa, please take care of it." Ishikawa nodded, and the Chief continued, "Borma, don't forget to shut down any monitoring searches still running on the researchers' activity -- we have no business peering into their personal lives now that they have been rescued."

"Yes, Chief."

Aramaki paused, and then looked over to where Batou and Motoko were sitting on the couch. Batou was trying to look casual, but a tenseness about his jaw belied his stress. Motoko was as unreadable as ever. Aramaki continued, "Lastly, I strongly suggest that you both take some time off . . . and Ishikawa, too. I can see that your experiences within the System have been stressful, and we don't have any other pressing cases right now."

They looked at him as if he had suggested they dance the polka. Finally, Motoko asked politely, "Is that all?"

"Yes, the debriefing is over."

As if directed by an invisible conductor, Section 9 stood up and started to leave. But then, Ishikawa stopped and asked,

"Major, I had a question for you. After you logged Batou out, his Ghost stayed in the system. How did you know that killing Batou's avatar would bring his Ghost back?" Everyone stopped their exit, lingering to overhear the answer.

"Yeah, that was pretty rough treatment for a delicate guy like myself," Batou added, grinning and rubbing his neck.

She shrugged, "His Ghost had too strong of a hold on the System -- I thought that, with his Ghost fully decoupled, I would be able to guide him out of the System. He followed me, as usual."

"Wow, according to some of the Ghost Theory research I've been reading about, I would have expected the shock of losing a shell -- even a virtual one -- while conscious would have been quite a trauma to the psyche. How did you **know** it would work," Ishikawa persisted.

"I didn't," she answered simply, crimson eyes unblinking, and she walked away. Batou's grin faded as he watched the Major leave. Soon the others followed, but Togusa stayed.

"What I don't get," Togusa began, moving away from the Major's uncomfortable remark, "is why the Professor wasn't affected like the others -- he knew he was in the System the whole time." Batou looked at him blankly for a moment, then shrugged.

"Being in the System . . . it was like someone else was in control, but I **was** that other person. Like I, as Batou, didn't even exist anymore . . . I don't know, it's too hard to explain." He looked off into the distance, thinking. "What I wonder is where that other person, that other . . . Ghost, came from. The System was supposed to just give experiences, right?"

Togusa nodded. "That's what all the notes talked about." He frowned, and then asked, "So, do you think the Professor just had a stronger sense of self? Or maybe his knowledge of history allowed him to more easily separate the experience from his own consciousness?"

Batou frowned angrily and shook his head. "Who knows! Why should I care-- I just want to forget about the whole damn thing!" Togusa took a step back at the sudden outburst.

"Whoa, maybe you really should take some time off, like the Chief said." Togusa tried to soften his comments with a smile, but Batou just looked at him with disgust and stormed off, feeling betrayed on all sides. He started feeling a little remorseful even before he got to the hallway, though, and called back,

"Sorry, Togusa. I -- " He paused, but words and thoughts were too muddled for a response. "Just forget about it." He headed for the locker room to get his jacket, still thinking about the Major's words. He appreciated that she came and rescued him, but he was ashamed she had to, that it had taken so much effort. _It wasn't that difficult to get anyone else out of the System . . . Weak._ Somehow he was weak when he should have been strong.

Slamming his locker door shut, he began to remember something . . . He had tried to forget most of his experience in the System; it was too painful to think of hating Motoko, of trying to kill her, of losing himself. "Follow me," she had said.

_She trusted me to follow her,_ he thought, _and I guess that's enough._

* * *

The stables smelled of wet hay and muck, but to the horses it smelled like home. A steady rain pattered against the roof, the only sound other than the horses' breathing and the occasional stomp of a hoof. One mare tossed her head impatiently, and then nudged the bolt holding her stall closed with her lip until it slid unlocked. She pushed the stall door open, and trotted out into the night. With a whinny of glee she galloped up the hill, leaping over a small stream and prancing wildly in the starlight night. Then, like thunder with no lightning to give warning, all the other horses galloped out of the stables, hooves pounding the ground in a beautiful percussion of movement, and joined the frolicking.

"Ohhh, so this is what it feels like to be alive!"

"I thought it would be more exciting."

"Does anyone have any apples? I really really really want one! I guess it's kind of like natural oil for horses . . . "

"I didn't think being alive would be so painful . . . my hooves hurt, and flies keep biting me!"

"Pain? Oh, I thought it was a sensory malfunction . . . "

"I want to gallop away into a sunset!"

"Do you think we're missing something, being horses instead of humans?

"Hmmm, maybe so. I wonder why the System put us in as horses, anyway?"

Suddenly, the scene disappeared from view, and there was only the maintenance bay, with the Tachikoma looking around in dismay.

"Is that it?"

"Why did it kick us out? Was there a buffer overflow?"

"Ishikawa just disconnected the System -- I heard they're going to take it apart. Good thing I was keeping watch and logged you out before he found you!" The Tachikoma shook its mechanical arm at the rest for emphasis. "Now, let me synchronize with you! I want to know what it feels like to be a human!"

"Actually, in the System, we were all horses."

"Horses? The equine animals anciently used for war, work, and transportation?"

"Yeah, but it was actually pretty neat! Here, I'll show you . . . "

"Ohhh! Wow! I see! Amazing!"

* * *

At a rear table in the Moti Indian Restaurant in New Tokyo, Aramaki sat down to meet with Professor Ogawa, his assistant Shimura Yumeko, and his old friend Yamashita. After ordering, Professor Ogawa began,

"Aramaki-san, I am deeply grateful for the tremendous effort your team has expended into rescuing all of us in this project. I should have suspected Akimoto's motives in funding the project were not as altruistic as they seemed, but to tell you the truth, we were just happy to find the funding."

"Not at all, Ogawa-san. We were happy to be of assistance. My only regret is that your assistant Fujiwara has not yet recovered consciousness."

Ogawa sighed worriedly. "Yes, that is still a problem . . . but no fault of yours, I can assure you."

Aramaki nodded gravely. Their orders arrived, and everyone took a moment to sample each dish. Mouths full of intricate spices savored each bite in thoughtful reflection, until Aramaki broke the silence by remarking, "Professor, I expect that the evidence we sent over to Section 1 has completely cleared you of any involvement in the illegal activities surrounding the Historical Immersion System." Ogawa nodded and swallowed.

"Yes, thank you for that as well! I still must testify in court, but Section 1 seems assured of my innocence -- and the rest of my team as well." He looked at Shimura and smiled. She nodded calmly.

"Well, what are your plans now, Professor," Yamashita asked.

"The truth is, we have actually received some funding from a different source to do related research into the field of historical data extraction. We hope to be able to use the same databases to create a more passive experience that should also be quite educational." Aramaki raised an eyebrow, and Ogawa hurriedly assured them, "Of course, with greater Ghost separation and much more stringent oversight."

Shimura added, "In fact, next week we are travelling to Kyoto University to meet with some researchers there who are working on the same project. This project would be open to the public, as a much more accessible and accurate way to learn about history than poring through books or watching old movies."

"But what about the System itself," Yamashita asked, curious, "Surely all that hard work wasn't for nothing? Can you use it in your new project." Ogawa shook his head, and Aramaki explained,

"The order from the Department of Internal Affairs is to dispose of the system. Research on Ghost Immersion, like that used in the Historical Immersion System, is temporarily prohibited until further investigation can be made."

"Disposed of? Are you overseeing this effort, then," Yamashita asked curiously.

"No, I have been ordered to give it to a third party for disposal. The National Diet Library's Special Collections Department will be executing and logging its disposition and archival." Aramaki's eyes glinted and he smiled faintly, but Yamashita didn't seem to notice.

"I see . . . well, that's unfortunate, then."

But the Major's voice soon came over his comlink, "The Special Collections Department, huh? You must have pulled a lot of strings to get it sent there."

Aramaki sent his thoughts back through the comlink. "A lot of people work in the Special Collections Department. I'm sure Aoi has better things to do than interfere with the System's proper disposal."

"Of course." The Major smiled, knowing the Historical Immersion System would be in good hands.

* * *

"You need a hand with that," Borma asked, gesturing to the pile of disconnected cables Ishikawa was fishing through.

"Sure, you can help me put these away," Ishikawa replied, looping a cable in a neat bundle and twisting a metal tie around it. Borma moved to join him.

"Hey, you know what's weird," Borma asked, after a few quiet moments of work.

"What?"

"There's this historical message board the researchers were using -- I guess they were discussing some of the reference materials, you know, networking with other researchers. There was even some historical reenactment section, like role-playing or something. Well, when I was shutting down some of the bots I had collecting net data on the researchers, I noticed that there was some new activity on this board."

"What's so strange about that," Ishikawa replied, picking up a new cable. Borma continued,

"So, for all the researchers, activity on the board stopped about 5 days ago, when they fell into comas. And so, now that they're conscious, it's not surprising that the posts have started again -- but there's been 153 posts in the last 24 hours in the roleplaying section, by somebody using Fujiwara's login."

"Fujiwara? The one who never woke up?"

"Exactly. I guess it could be his roommate or something . . . but maybe you should take a look at it." Borma moved over to the terminal and brought up the message board:

**_Forum Topic:_** Siege of Osaka   
**_Moderators:_** TokugawaHideyori, SenHime, TendoJuuichiro

**Thread Title:** Briefing at the Gate  
**Last Post By:** FujiwaraKenji

**Thread Title:** The Barracks  
**Last Post By:** m4sterN1nj4

**Thread Title:** Midnight Patrol  
**Last Post By:** FujiwaraKenji

**Thread Title:** Reflections By a Pond  
**Last Post By:** FujiwaraKenji

**Thread Title:** A Ninja Investigates  
**Last Post By:** FujiwaraKenji

**Thread Title:** Dream of a Disembodied Soul  
**Last Post By:** UnnoRokuro . .

**Thread Title:** A Question of Honor  
**Last Post By:** FujiwaraKenji

終

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Author's Note: _Thanks to my hubby & co-author, and my family (my sister better read this!). Also, thanks to everyone who read and reviewed, especially Zurizip and Byrnstar, whose early reviews really encouraged me. I hope you enjoyed it -- I really tried to stay IC and be historically plausible. No sequel is planned (I'm having a baby in six weeks!), but I suppose you never know . . . :-)_


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